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More Reluctant

It’s time for a little chamber musicof Arensky or Borodin, something minorand enduring, as we imagine ourselvesto be, let that be a wake-up call,as the man said. When you turned I thoughtyou’ve got to stop me, I’m out of controlbut mature, so every step I takecounts. Meanwhile you were rambling onabout something, nobody knows what,so that behind the wall of the setting sunthe great presences could collect and mutateas in former times. Wasn’t it all a legendor fictive construction? Why did wethink it mattered for us and not for others?The whole urban chaos spalls and before we know it the subject has changed.What other conversation are you in?Whose day has spent? Working in the town,that lummox was charged with evaluation,so if groups of young people started offin an opposite direction there would be a mentionsometimes. The housefronts seem more gaudy this year,eggshell and pale green and no onewants to take the responsibility. Moonlightersobserve customs of the spruce of the yearthe way tin warriors would keep company with papermodels if others left the square unsupervised.By the way they have a store in Hartford,Connecticut. I often pee sometimes.The awful leaf was congruent,too. Mothers and hustlers bridled in the chokingdust that afflicts it from everywhere, yet ownsto no thread in the proceedings. They washedit clean every night. In the mornings the footprintswere back, but no one was wiser. A littlebunny or some kind of ferret was probablythere too, and bore witness as only rodents can.I could see the guy. Some in lesser handssay repeatedly, wash it out, the shared indictmentought to stand if only so they can all go home. Wonderful,that it is. Now that wasn’t so easy, was it?

John Ashbery began publishing poetry in The New Yorker in 1972. He is the author of, most recently, “Breezeway.”